Kickstarter is coming to Canada: here’s how to not screw it up

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Jason Giles

So, Kickstarter is launching in Canada September 9th, but potential entrepreneurs can get the jump start on creating their kickstarter campaigns now. This gives entrepreneurs and startups a massive platform to acquire initial funds and build an active community of evangelists really quickly.

This is also a bad thing because oh my god, please don’t take an amateur approach to marketing your idea. I really mean it. Turn off the webcam and step away from Photoshop. You know what, just go ahead and close that Word doc too.

Listen, I understand that Kickstarter is all about the entrepreneurial spirit and DIY ideas and honestly, that’s fantastic. But, the majority of successful campaigns highly benefit from not only slick design, but great strategy behind things like video, story and incentives. Not a webcam video of you in your bedroom playing an acoustic guitar. It may have worked for the Beibs, but that was YouTube in 2007, and he wasn’t asking anyone for money. On Kickstarter you’re asking people to give up their hard-earned cash, and you need to show them it’s for a good (and legitimate) reason. Also, that 3,000 word description detailing your life’s purpose? Yeah, no one’s reading that. Copy needs to be tight, sincere and a little bit funny. It’s not the space to write a manifesto (unless you’re kickstarting a manifesto, then uh, carry on).

With that in mind, you’re probably not the only person who thought of a scale that tweets your weight (patent pending) so it’s gonna have to stand out. Have you ever seen the show DIY disaster? Yeah, that’s what your page might end up like without a strong, branded strategy.

I’ve written about the wit and charm of — as I like to call it, “Amatuer marketing,” because sometimes it’s extremely clever and deserving of attention.  But this works best on A-Frames and point of purchase material as the customer is already in the door. If you have a truly great idea, why sell it short by not being able to convey properly just how much has gone into making this a reality?

As luck would have it, not only are we great and handsome bloggers, we’re also pretty good at this Kickstarter business. From branding, to video production to copy and even incentive strategies, our team will make your product/ service/ Star Trek and X-Men crossover slash fiction look like a kickstarter rock star.

Give us a shout, we love to help.

Jason is a Digital Strategist at 88 Creative. Follow him on Twitter @Jasegiles .